🌐 Bytes of an Internet Past ⌛ In early 20XX, there were three main pillars of chatting with your friends online in real-time: MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger. Knock-knocks, buzzes, screenshakes, and the familiar sound of a door opening as that certain someone came online. - ThreadSky

sharkabytes.bsky.social • 204 days ago

🌐 Bytes of an Internet Past ⌛

In early 20XX, there were three main pillars of chatting with your friends online in real-time: MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger.

Knock-knocks, buzzes, screenshakes, and the familiar sound of a door opening as that certain someone came online.

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Comments

baronvonpaddington.com•204 days ago

You forgot about icq!

sharkabytes.bsky.social•204 days ago

Yeah, I misremembered it as more of a niche hobbyist thing and didn't think it had the same mainstream presence as MSN, AIM, and YM, but may have been thinking of IRC.

baronvonpaddington.com•204 days ago

IRC was definitely the nerd haven niche chat. It was the best 🤣

dorolfe.bsky.social•204 days ago

I think ICQ predates msn, fwiw, and icq shutdown just this year, so it pretty much outlasted them all. IRC will obviously never die tho :)

baronvonpaddington.com•204 days ago

IRC forged me into the thick skinned, sarcastic monstrosity that I am today. Nothing phases me anymore after growing up with irc as a babysitter 🤣

dorolfe.bsky.social•204 days ago

I was on undernet all through the 90s, but fell off around 2006, I guess social media had replaced it for me around then.

benstylus.bsky.social•204 days ago

5326196 was my UIN. I actually logged in a couple months before the shutdown was announced and got a few nostalgia hits seeing the usernames of old internet friends I've since lost contact with.

baronvonpaddington.com•204 days ago

The only thing I remember about mine was that it was in the 300k range. I used to lord it over my friends 🤣

thaddeus.zone•204 days ago

"uh oh!"

baronvonpaddington.com•204 days ago

I can hear it in my head 🤣

egobizarro.bsky.social•204 days ago

Hey Crabman!

labryssa-de-sapphe.bsky.social•204 days ago

The door sound. The goddamn door sound.

Have you played Emily is Away?

heyheyitssteve.bsky.social•204 days ago

Ahh, my youth. I used two of three, and the fairly neatly split them between audiences.

MSN was people I knew IRL - or, y’know, wanted to know IRL.

AIM was for ‘online people’ from forums and such.

Wasn’t a conscious or deliberate choice, but mildly amusing it just kinda worked out that way.

themichie.bsky.social•204 days ago

ICQ ftw haha :)

hereticalproductions.net•204 days ago

And they all still look a thousand times better than Discord's default UI.

Also this reminds me, you can still use MSN and AIM via MSN Escargot and AIM Phoenix.

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